More SUVs from Audi

Expect Audi to roll out a fleet of lighter, faster and more economical SUVs, along with at least two swoopier, sportier, coupe-style Q models.

The brand has been tinkering with all manner of niche-fillers to bridge the gap between MPVs and SUVs, but the next generation of its Q7 will also spawn a sleeker-styled Q8, while the next Q5 five-door will spawn a sportier-looking Q6.

And, in a piece of good news for the harder-core drivers, senior sources have admitted there will be a faster, RS version of the Q8 out of the quattro GmbH division within months of the main car’s launch in late 2015.

The Q8, confirmed by senior Audi executives last week, will follow the more conservative looking Q7 into battle, with the second-generation big SUV taking on the BMW X5 and the Mercedes-Benz M-Class, while the Q8 will aim up precisely at the BMW X6.

Based on Volkswagen Group’s new modular SUV architecture, the Q7 and Q8 will run the gamut of engines from a 3.0-litre biturbo diesel to a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine/hybrid combination and a V8 petrol engine.

A remapped version of the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 will make its way from the RS 7 and the RS 6 Avant into the Q8 engine bay to make the RS Q8 the first large SUV from quattro.

It will arrive within months of the base Q8, with Audi’s tech boss, Ulrich Hackenberg, determined to bring all quattro models to market within two to three months of the mainstream models in the way AMG follows Mercedes-Benz.

“I would like to see quattro deliver models far earlier in the product cycle of the mainstream cars,” Mr Hackenberg said in Sweden last week.

“We’re later than the ideal timing most of the time. We have to do things to make it faster with S and RS models.”

But Audi won’t be concentrating just on the larger SUVs, because there is a new Q1 arriving at the bottom end of the Audi SUV range in 2016. The German-built baby SUV will sit atop the same MQB architecture that underpins everything from the Volkswagen Golf to the Audi A3.

But its arrival will force production of the next Q5 and its sister car, the BMW X4-hunting Q6, to move production to Audi’s new Mexican plant in a move that both lowers costs and delivers the cars into the US market far faster and for less money than before.

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